As they cautiously - and in Tucker's case, extremely reluctantly - followed the grass woman into the clearing, the woods (the Woods? Was that what was deciding what he should look like, when the trees weren't helping him?) decided he should be a cat again. Not a forest cat, either, but a tiny black house kitten.
Sam picked him up, which was undignified, but he would have had a difficult time navigating the tall grass when he was so small.
He had to wonder if the… if whatever was the source of the pull and the changes was mad at him for making the grass woman ask three times for his help.
He was supposed to help. Like he'd helped the humans before. He… wasn't sure where that conviction had come from, and his mind still shied away from examining his initial transformation too closely, but he was convinced that it was true.
The clearing was full of grasses of different lengths, shades, and ripeness, all swaying gently. Undulating, like the surface of the sea.
(Danny had never seen the sea before. He shouldn't know what it was like. But the Woods had, once upon a time. They had grown right up to the salty coast, and dipped root and branch in briny water. They had even continued, for a distance, under that water, claiming weed and reed as their own. Those days were over, now, and the greatest body of water they encompassed was a lake. But they remembered.)
At the center of the clearing was a table and set of chairs. Like the woman, they were woven of grass. Wicker-work, he might call it, if it were less obviously supernatural. On the table were similarly woven baskets of bread.
"I offer my table as the site of our parley. You will rise from it as unharmed as when you sat down, if you shall also stand as guarantor for the humans doing the same, young guardian."
Those words prompted something in Danny, and he shifted again. He stood on Sam's arm as a crow, a white one. He ruffled his feathers. White crows and ravens tended to be sickly compared to their darker counterparts, but Danny suspected that was the point.
(He was pretty sure the woods were still at least annoyed at him.)
Then again, the old Rangers had bred black, white, and even brown ravens, for reasons they never bothered to write down, so maybe there was something else, some other signal, happening here. One he didn't know enough to interpret, but the grass woman seemed to, by her stillness.
A tall stalk of grass brushed against his toes and he squawked. Once again, inkling of formality and ritual and observance brushed against his mind. Knowledge he didn't, shouldn't, have, and a prompt to use it.
Some crows, the woods told him, had been altered so they could speak.
"I guarantee," said Danny, haltingly. His voice as a crow was radically different from his voice as a human.
Almost at once, he was compressed into a kitten again.
Disgruntled, he leapt from Sam's arms and onto the table, hoping that the woven grass would impart some of the same benefits as the trees. It didn't. He sat, wrapping his tail around his paws as best he could, and glared up at the grass woman.
She looked down at him, impassive, then sat herself. Sam and Tucker took their seats more gingerly.
"What do you want in exchange for returning the grain you stole?" asked Sam, her words clipped.
"Nothing," said the grass woman. "I did not steal it, and I do not intend to give it back."
"People will starve without that grain."
"If the only way they can survive is to pervert the natural order and destroy the very thing that gives them life, that is only just."
"What are you talking about? How is storing grain for the winter perverting the natural order? Even squirrels store food for winter."
"Humans grow without limit, without reason, without care, and in doing so, they strip from the land all that is good." She looked down at Danny. "Do not doubt me so easily, little Guardian. I know you were once of human stock, but you are no longer. Your concerns must be greater. Listen well, for I have witnessed myself what humans will do. The extent to which they will consume, if left unchecked. Guardian, through you I offer to these woods, ancient and magical as they are, my services." She pressed her hand against her wicker chest. "With my help, the land that has been stolen in their slumber may be reclaimed."
"If you will not discuss the grain," interrupted Sam, "I don't understand why you called this a negotiation."
"There are other things that may be negotiated," said the grass woman, "such as the proper place for you humans, when everything is put right."
Sam scowled. "You–"
Tucker pulled her back down as she began to stand, clearly incensed. "Exact words," he hissed at her.
She settled and visibly collected herself.
"I have been doing this out of order," she said. "I am Princess Samantha Annamarie Laurel Caspera Manson of Amity, Duchess of Beau, Daughter of King Jeremy Matthew Rowan Casper Manson of Amity, Duke of Casper, and Queen Consort Pamela, Princess of Iiedium. My companions are Tucker Foley and Daniel Fenton. And you are?"
The grass seemed to hiss, and Danny felt his fur stand on end.
"I am the Grain Woman," said, well, the Grain Woman, apparently.
"And what is your grievance against my people, that you should act against us in such a way?"
"Only the grievance that all things not human should have," said the Grain Woman. "You consume everything."
Danny meowed, surprising Sam enough to bite off her words. Good. The way she'd looked, she'd been about to start shouting, or at least arguing, and Danny didn't think that was really going to be useful at the moment. The Grain Woman wasn't going to listen to them. She wanted to lecture, and until she said her piece, that's all she would do.
If they wanted to get anywhere, they had to let her.
"Yes, yes, I will explain, Guardian." The Grain Woman turned her head to the side, to look at the grass growing near the table. For the first time, she seemed to breathe, to sigh. "I was from the Great Steppes of Anezheha, which are sometimes called the Grass Ocean. It was much like these woods, then. Magic gathered there, and welled up out of the earth like water from a spring. There, I and my sisters, and countless other creatures both magic and mundane made our homes. There were humans there, at the beginning, too, but they did not linger. They traveled with the seasons, driving their captive herds before them.
"Then other humans came, from the west instead of the east, and they began to divide the land among themselves, and sow strange grasses. To my shame, I thought this, too, was acceptable, for they did not cross into the Steppes themselves, afraid of becoming lost amongst the trackless grass. It was they who named me, for they sought my favor, so that I would make their crops grow fast and fruitful.
"But this, too, did not last. There was war, between the farmers of the west and the herdsmen of the east, and the Steppes were caught between them. A great, terrible war, where vast fields were set alight and salted.
"It was this war that forced the Steppes into slumber, and while we and it slept, the humans continued their depredations. When the Steppes struggled awake once more, I was the only one left of my sisters. Their land had been put under plow, or built over, or burned, or all of those things.
"And at first, I thought this great misfortune was only the turn of fate, though I hated it. But then I saw them, these great towers, these great storehouses, designed only to hold what they could not use, and I watched them increase, year after year, with no end, for humans are never satisfied with their number, never satisfied with what they have. There were more, always more, and they wasted what they took.
"I fought them, then. I stood among the fields that had once been my sisters, and I waited for the unwary. I took back what I could, I culled the numbers of those who destroyed my sisters and wished to take my home, and fed what power I could back into the Steppes."
Danny felt his ears go back. By culled she meant killed, maybe even murdered, depending on the other circumstances.
"But it was too late already," continued the Grain Woman. "The Steppes were dying, and I fled, so that I might live. These woods took me in, in my exile. But they, too, slept, and now that we have awoken…" She took a deep breath. "I see the same troubles that afflicted my first home. I will not let this, my second home, suffer the same fate at the hands of humans."
"All of that took place over the course of hundreds of years," said Sam, incredulous. Tucker tugged on her sleeve. "Don't do that. I know my history. My mother traveled through Anezheha on her way here."
"And yet, you do not deny that it occurred."
"Well," said Sam, "I know that there used to be a magic reservoir there before, but there isn't, now, and I know there were wars between the exile settlers from Oksidena and the nomad tribes, but," she said, sharply, "as I said, that was hundreds of years ago. And Amity's history goes back even further than that. We aren't newcomers."
"And yet, the borders of the woods have been pushed back. Humans cut down trees to make room for fields where the grass isn't even allowed to grow properly, or worse, their towns and cities."
"My family regulates that kind of expansion," said Sam.
"Which is the only reason I have not struck you down," said the Grain Woman. "I have taken only what was grown on land stolen from the woods. You humans…" She said the word with audible disgust. "You do not have the right to consume everything. You do not have the right to waste. From now on… from now on, you must live as other creatures do. Within your proper limits. Without excess. Without destruction."
"Nothing lives like that." Sam's hands were wrapped dangerously tight around the edge of the table, crinkling the edge. "Not even plants. If you leave blackberries or mint alone, they'll take over your garden. Things get out of balance in nature all the time."
"And then you weed them out, do you not? You cull the numbers of what you dislike, and add to the numbers of what you do want. Is that so different from what I am doing?" The Grain Woman turned to Danny, expression earnest, but… It wasn't a real expression. Her whole body was nothing more than a mask. "Guardian, I implore you. It is you who are the arbitrator, you who can speak to the woods directly, and force the humans to abide by reasonable restrictions!"
Danny did not suddenly turn into something capable of speech, even if he wanted to. However, shaking his head conveyed a message clear even to the Grain Woman.
"I can win back the land stolen from you," she said. "In the far east, in Yushenha, I learned from my cousins. There are forests there, made of grass as tall and thick as trees. With my strength and knowledge, I could make them grow fast, a leading edge for your return."
And now she was addressing Danny as though he was the woods, which was incredibly uncomfortable. Especially because he could feel something leaning over his shoulder, interested in this tree-grass thing.
"Let me repay you for your shelter, given to me in my time of need," continued the Grain Woman. "Let me destroy these pests that sap your strength!"
Not that interested. That presence recoiled as Danny did, and he spread white wings once again.
"The people and the land are one!" he declared, his voice not entirely his own.
"And we aren't going to take this lying down," said Sam, now on her feet, leaning forward across the table. "If you steal our grain, if you steal our silos, we will make more. I will not let my people starve just because some foreigner thinks they shouldn't eat!"
"I have lived here longer than you, girl," hissed the Grain Woman.
"And what does that matter, when you're trying to treat Amity like the Anezhehan Steppes? Like Yushenha?"
Danny leaped in between Sam and the Grain Woman. This was going to get nasty fast, unless he figured out some way to break them up, get them to cool off. Danny knew Sam understood how dangerous the Grain Woman was, but people did weird things when they were angry.
He doubted the Grain Woman could be reasoned with, but he didn't think the woods (the Woods? Still, that trouble with names) would give her their approval, either. Safely away from this place, he, Sam, and Tucker could figure something out, some way to appease the Grain Woman, drive her away, prevent her from stealing more food, or simply avoid her.
But they couldn't do that if they were dead. Which is what they would be if they fought someone who could control trees in the middle of a forest.
"You said you only deigned to spare us because of my family's conservation rules?" asked Sam, something dangerous in her eyes. "Then listen to this: I was the one who came up with the idea of the silos. How do you like that?"
The trees screamed, and the Grain Woman… unraveled, returning to component pieces, the single straws of grass. The table and chairs, too, came apart, forcing Danny to fly, though he could only keep that up for a moment, the motion still too alien to him.
But as he flew, the grass wrapped around Sam and Tucker and pulled them down into the earth. The grass closed over them, as if undisturbed, leaving only the grassy clearing, seemingly peaceful, seemingly mundane.
Danny gasped, then screamed just as loudly, with just as much offense and pain as the trees.
He landed lightly on the ground, a kitten again, he yowled and hissed and howled and clawed at the ground. His friends! His friends! And after he'd guaranteed… After… Shouldn't the Grain Woman have been bound by her word, as she sought to bind him? Did it matter that Sam had technically risen from the table? Tucker hadn't. He'd been seized by the very chair he'd been sitting on.
Then, a strange feeling rose up inside him. A disquiet, an outrage that was not his, but matched his nicely.
The old language had many words for land, but as the land was the people was the land, and the woods were the land, and the land was the woods, then, too, the land was the woods, and the ground it was planted in, and–
And his thoughts were becoming tangled, confused, pulled in directions he couldn't follow by an– an entity he couldn't comprehend. But what he could comprehend was that if he so chose, he could follow Sam and Tucker where they had been taken.
So, he jumped, just a little, into the air, and from there dove down into the earth.